The major disputes that involve land use generally revolve around the tension between the needs of the public and the individual's right to property.

The 5th Amendment states that a person's property may not be taken without the due process of law or without compensation. There are those who argue that the government is effectively taking our property away when it regulates the way we can use that land. Let us say, for example that I could sell my property in a single-family residential neighborhood to a developer who would like to build an apartment building. The government's regulations would prevent me from doing this. When the government does so, one can argue that it is taking away the value I could have gotten from the developer. In addition, we can say that the government is taking away my right to do as I wish with my property.

My right to do what I want with my property, then, comes into conflict with the needs of the community. The other homeowners in my neighborhood have an interest in keeping the neighborhood residential, but that clashes with my right to dispose of my property as I wish.